Gospel for Life: Meet Jay
Because of my passion to help the church recover her New Testament mission, I founded Gospel for Life in 2005. GFL is a training ministry which assists local churches in fulfilling The Great Commission through evangelistic outreach and through curriculum designed to keep the Gospel central in discipleship. We provide equipping in leadership development, evangelism, apologetics and discipleship, and in grace-driven sanctification instruction. My week is typically occupied with men’s ministry, worldview mentoring, and discipleship. It has been my privilege to regularly present a workshop on Worldview Evangelism at churches and Bible institutes.
Experience in working as a professional artist keeps me always alert to the beauty God has put in His creation. If you’d like to see some of the fine art landscape paintings they may be viewed online at www.jaywegter.com
Early in my Christian experience (1973) when the Lord first took hold of my life, I instantly found myself in awe of God’s grace. I discovered that His grace to me in Christ not only motivated my worship; but also fired my yearning to obey Him. What I was experiencing is born out in the Word of God: His grace calls us to walk in a manner worthy of our calling in the Lord (Eph 4:1). I continued to feast upon the Scriptures and upon Christian books which opened up the believer’s riches in Christ. The more I studied, the more convinced I became that the believer’s practice is to flow out of his gracious position and resources in Christ.
The Puritan authors I was reading were brilliant on this relationship between the believer’s gracious position in Christ and the believer’s holy walk. They always drew a line of logical connection from our union with Christ to our necessary separation from sin. Their sermons showed with utter clarity the link between the believer’s position in Christ and the believer’s ethical obligation to walk uprightly. Their arguments for holy living were firmly anchored in the grace of God. Their call to sanctification was truly ‘grace-driven’. The more I meditated upon and read about the Word of God’s grace the more clearly I understood that this order of grace-driven holiness was the Pauline model (or New Testament model) for the believer’s sanctification.
But, to my dismay, in much of my church experience I found that many of the sermons I was hearing did not draw a rational line of connection between the believer’s position and the believer’s practice. As I listened to some of these messages, it was as if the imperatives being preached for holy living stood alone like free-floating exhortations severed from the gospel. No wonder I was hearing these kinds of sermons in a ‘be good’ fashion. Many of these messages functioned as a set of moralistic injunctions divorced from the over-arching purposes of God’s grace and isolated from our gracious resources in Christ. Where was the life-giving link between orthodoxy and orthopraxy; between faith and practice; between grace and holiness?
At first I was disturbed at the vexation rising up in me as I sat under moralistic sermons. But, as time passed, I became increasingly convinced that in the gospel age Scripture consistently anchors its commands for holy living in the gracious work and purposes of God. Perhaps I really did have a good reason to be discontent at what I was hearing. My reading and meditating eventually led to writing and teaching on the subject of the gospel-driven life. As I ministered in schools and churches and Bible studies, I met countless believers who were living with defeat because they were attempting the Christian life through their performance.
Why were they beat down and defeated? In part it was due to the fact that their approach to Christian obedience was not emanating from their position in Christ and their union with Him. Instead, they viewed their efforts at obedience as providing a degree of acceptance with God. Is it any wonder they felt so cast down? I remember providing a four day church renewal conference in a mountain state for a congregation which was between pastors. At the close of the conference, the tearful gratitude of the members was a strong confirmation that Christians today are spiritually hungry to hear about Christ and their position of union with Him.
Well this is only part of the story. The Dynamics of Grace curriculum underwent another series of revisions until it became suitable for church renewal workshops. Eventually it became a course for a church-based logos institute; and then an elective and finally a required course which I teach at The Master’s College. And now, after almost of year of preaching these lessons in an adult fellowship, the Dynamics of Grace messages are being compiled into a workbook resource called, “Thirty Days of Transforming Grace” which is set for release in September of 2010.
Now back to the story of Gospel for Life. My love of God’s grace in Christ was deepening its hold on me further. Instead of cooling my passion to tell others, my desire was increasing. In 2005 we built a non-profit corporation, Gospel for Life. That title is a play on words; for the gospel gives eternal LIFE through Christ; but also we need the GOSPEL FOR our entire Christian LIFE. We aren’t finished with the gospel once we are saved. The good news is not merely our entrance into the Christian life. The gospel, or “the Word of His grace” as Paul sometimes calls it, “is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified” (Acts 20:32). The gospel keeps displaying Christ to the eye of faith; it keeps opening up God’s purposes for His grace; and it keeps setting before me that grace has eternity as its goal.
Inseparable from the gospel is the Great Commission—to go into the all the world and make disciples by baptizing them and teaching them all the things which Christ has commanded (Matt 28:18-20). Our organization, Gospel for Life, not only exists to strengthen believers in their walk with Christ through the ongoing power of the gospel. Our thrust is equally aimed at fortifying and equipping churches in fulfilling the Great Commission. In addition to the Dynamics of Grace workbook, which will serve as a much-needed resource for discipleship, GFL is just about to release a workbook on discipleship (set for release, Summer of 2010) titled, “Christ’s Pattern for His Church:
Disciples making Disciples.”
We are exceptionally grateful for the brethren who have seen the value of this vision. Christ’s church has always grown in this manner: fellow believers embrace the Great Commission; then they count it a privilege to make the sacrifices necessary to fulfill our Lord’s mandate.